Sensing Light for Sight and Physiological Regulation

Abstract

Mammals sense light for sight as well as for “non-image” visual functions that include the regulation of circadian rhythms, sleep, and mood. Non-image vision relies on neurons of the retina that express melanopsin, a light-activated G protein coupled receptor. These intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells send visual information directly to more than thirty brain regions. This seminar concerns how melanopsin and the intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells are tailored to non-image vision, examining specializations at several scales of biological organization in the nocturnal rodent and diurnal primate.